Pool shark Jesse Cardiff stays after hours practicing at Lister's Pool Room in
Chicago. He bitterly muses that he would be considered the greatest
pool player of all time, if it were not for the memory of James Howard "Fats" Brown, who died sixteen years previously, overshadowing him. Jesse says he would give anything to play one game against Fats, prompting Fats himself to wearily rise from a pool table in the
afterlife. He appears in the pool room and offers to play
14.1 against Jesse, with a wager attached. If Jesse wins, he will be acknowledged as the greatest pool player ever; if he loses, he forfeits his life. Jesse accepts these conditions and the two begin to play. As the game goes on, Jesse says that when he was young, he got tired of people looking down on him because they were good at things he could not do. He began to watch games at the pool hall as a teenager, and he began to pursue the sport in earnest after beating one of the locals in the first game he ever played. The owner has since let him practice after closing time, but in doing so, Jesse has forgone all other pleasures in life. Throughout the game, Fats laments that Jesse has done nothing with his life but play pool, explaining that he himself lived a full life in addition to becoming a great player. Jesse ignores Fats, convinced that he is just trying to distract him. With one ball left on the table and both men needing to sink it in order to win, Fats misses his shot on purpose, and he warns Jesse that he may get more than he bargained for if he wins the game. Jesse sinks the ball and revels in his victory, now secure in his status as the best pool player of all time. Fats thanks Jesse for beating him and disappears, ignoring Jesse's accusation of being a
sore loser. Long after his own death, Jesse is summoned from the afterlife to travel to Mason's Pool Hall in
Sandusky, Ohio, to play against a challenger. Known even in death as the greatest pool player ever, Jesse has no choice but to face an endless series of would-be successors until someone beats him and claims his title. Meanwhile, Fats has gone fishing, relieved of his obligation. ==Closing narration==